In video broadcast and processing applications, digital video data is typically encoded to conform to the requirements of a known standard. One such widely adopted standard is the MPEG2 (Moving Pictures Expert Group) image encoding standard, hereinafter referred to as the "MPEG standard". The MPEG standard is comprised of a system encoding section (ISO/IEC 13818-1, 10th Jun. 1994) and a video encoding section (ISO/IEC 13818-2, 20th Jan. 1995). Data encoded to the MPEG standard is in the form of a packetized datastream which typically includes the data content of many program channels (e.g. content corresponding to cable television channels 1-125). Further, several digital services and channels may occupy the frequency spectrum previously occupied by a single analog channel. A 6 MHz bandwidth previously allocated to an analog NTSC compatible broadcast channel may now be split into a number of digital sub-channels offering a variety of services. For example, the broadcast spectrum for RF channel 13 may be allocated to sub-channels including a main program channel, a financial service channel offering stock quotes, a sports news service channel and a shopping and interactive channel. In addition, both the quantity of sub-channels transmitted and the individual sub-channel bandwidth may be changed dynamically to accommodate changing broadcast programming requirements.
In such a digital video system the proliferation in the quantity of services being broadcast and the increased variety of their content, as well as the ability of a broadcaster to dynamically vary the number and allocated bandwidth of these channels poses a number of problems. Specifically, the increase in the quantity of broadcast channels may increase the difficulty of tuning and lengthen the time required to acquire a selected program channel. Further, as the quantity of channels increases so does the quantity of ancillary program specific information required in decoding the transmitted program data. The ancillary program specific information includes data used in identifying and assembling packets comprising selected programs and also includes program guide and text information associated with the transmitted program data. The increased quantity and variety of ancillary information transmitted places an additional burden on available transmission bandwidth and receiver decoding and storage resources.
In addition, channel numbering in such a digital video system may present a problem. This is because a broadcaster may not want to lose an original analog NTSC broadcast channel number even though the broadcaster is transmitting several program channels in the frequency spectrum previously occupied by the single analog program channel. The broadcaster may have a significant investment in the channel number as a brand identity e.g. Fox 5.TM., Channel 13.TM.. These problems and derivative problems are addressed by a system according to the present invention.